Category Archives: Sandy Curtis

As this is posted, it’s 134 years since Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island was published as a novel (it had previously been published in serial form in Young Folks magazine). Even now, the story is popular, although our lives are, in many ways, so much different.

There’s just something about adventure stories such as Treasure Island that can capture the imagination, and keep readers turning or swiping pages. Perhaps that’s part of the reason that there are so many adventure stories in crime fiction. Readers get to take part in the adventure without really undergoing the actual dangers. These stories can be fun, too.

Agatha Christie wrote more than one adventure-type crime novel. For instance, in The Man in the Brown Suit, we are introduced to Anne Bedingfield. Her father has recently died, leaving her with no real family, and little in the way of money. She decides she doesn’t want to stay in London, but isn’t sure at first just what she does want to do. Then one day, she happens to be on hand when a man falls, or is pushed, under a train. She finds a piece of paper that had been in the dead man’s pocket, and soon works out that it refers to an upcoming sailing of the Kilmorden Castle for Cape Town. On impulse, she books passage and prepares for an adventure. And adventure is what she gets. She discovers that the man’s death (and another death) are related to international intrigue, stolen jewels, and a crime syndicate.

In Sandy Curtis’ Deadly Tide, we are introduced to Brisbane police officer Chayse Jarrett. He’s been assigned to work on the investigation of the murder of a deckhand, Ewan McKay. Allan ‘Tug’ Bretton, captain of the trawler Sea Mistress, has been accused of the murder, and it’s believed that it all might be connected to the drugs trade. Jarrett is instructed to go undercover on Sea Mistress and find out whether Bretton is involved in the drugs trade, and whether he killed McKay. As it happens, Bretton broke his leg in the incident that ended in McKay’s murder, so he’s not able to skipper Sea Mistress. His daughter, Samantha ‘Sam’ wants to take his place, so that the family’s income won’t be in jeopardy. Bretton doesn’t like the idea, but he also sees little choice if the family is to keep going. So, he gives his consent, and Sam takes the wheel, with Jarrett on board as the new deckhand, and her other crewmate Bill Marvin rounding out the team. The crew soon finds that the sea isn’t their only danger. For one thing, Melbourne drug lord Stefan Kosanovos is trying to make inroads by sea into Brisbane, and does not welcome any interference. For another, both Sam Bretton and Chayse Jarrett are determined to find and bring down McKay’s murderer, and that presents its own risks. In the end, we learn who killed McKay and why, and how it’s connected with the long-ago voyage of another ship. This is a crime novel, but it’s also an adventure story, with narrow escapes, nasty villains, and so on.

Derek B. Miller’s Norwegian by Night sends octogenarian Sheldon Horowitz on a series of adventures. He’s recently moved to Norway to be nearer his granddaughter, Rhea, and her Norwegian husband. The plan is for him to settle into life as an older man, living out his final years peacefully. That’s not what happens, though. One day, Horowitz inadvertently witnesses the murder of a young woman. He rescues her young son, and the two of them go on the lam, since it’s very likely that the killers will go after the boy next. As the police look for the killer, Horowitz and his travel companion go on all sorts of adventures, including on a tractor. In the end, they help to catch the killer.

Stark Holborn’s Nunslinger series is the story of Sister Thomas Josephine. It’s 1864, and Sister Josephine is making her way across the western United States from her convent in St. Louis to a new life in Sacramento. Sister Josephine is intelligent and quick-thinking, and she’s not so naïve as to believe that everyone she meets is going to be pleasant and helpful. But she’s not prepared, at least at first, for the adventure and risks that she’ll encounter. Theft, murder, arson, and more are a part of life in what’s often been called ‘the Wild West,’ and Sister Josephine runs into more than her share of those dangers. She learns quickly, though, and becomes, if I can put it this way, a little tougher as time goes by. In the end, she adapts to this very adventurous life. Holbern has set up this story as a series of short (novella-length) books, some of which end on cliffhangers. That sort of story ending isn’t to everyone’s liking, but it reflects the fact that this is an adventure series as much as it is anything else.

There’s also Geoffrey McGeachin’s Fat, Fifty, and F***ed. In that novel, we meet Martin Carter, a banker who’s just been made redundant. As if that’s not enough, his marriage has fallen apart. On his last day of work, Carter gives in to temptation, and makes off with a million-dollar payroll. He makes his escape in a stolen police-issue 4WD, and takes off on what turns out to be a series of adventures.

Adventure stories can require more suspension of disbelief than some readers want. But they can be exciting and fun, too. Little wonder so many people love them.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Jim Steinman’s Objects in the Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are.

One of literature’s very interesting plots is what Christopher Booker has called the voyage and return. Booker’s work has its critics, but it is interesting to see how journeys (whether figurative or literal) can change people. We certainly see this sort of structure in crime fiction, and that makes sense when you consider all of the things that can happen on a voyage, no matter how you conceive of that term.

For example, there’s quite a literal voyage and return in Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train. After ten years of service as a paid companion, Katherine Grey inherits a fortune when her employer dies. She decides to use some of the money to travel, and chooses Nice as her destination (she has distant relatives who live there). As she’s taking the famous Blue Train through France, she meets wealthy Ruth Van Aldin Kettering, who has her own reasons for taking the train. During the trip, Ruth is murdered, and Katherine is drawn in to the case. Hercule Poirot is taking the same train, and he works with the police to find out who killed the victim and why. Katherine returns to her village of St. Mary Mead, and takes up another position, but she’s not the same person as when she left. As Poirot points out, she’s no longer an onlooker to life; she takes an active part in it.

Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time features fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone. He has autism, although he’s high-functioning, and is quite accustomed to a certain routine in his life. One day, he discovers that the dog belonging to the people next door is dead. Its owners think he’s responsible, but Christopher knows he isn’t. So, he decides to be a detective, just like Sherlock Holmes, and find out the truth. The trail leads him to several unexpected places, and when he returns, he’s not the same person he was. He still has autism, but he has discovered several important things about himself.

H.R.F. Keating’s Inspector Ghote’s First Case serves as a prequel to his series featuring Mumbai police detective Ganesh Ghote. In this novel, Ghote has just been promoted to the rank of Inspector. His supervisor asks him to travel to Mahableshwar and look into a case of suicide on behalf of a friend. It seems Robert Dawkins’ wife Iris killed herself, and he (Dawkins) wants to know why. Since Dawkins is a friend of Ghote’s boss, Ghote feels he has no choice but to look into the matter, although his wife, Protima, is about to give birth to their first child. So, he goes to Mahableshwar and begins to ask questions. He finds that there are reasons for which Iris Dawkins might have wanted to take her own life. Still, the clues don’t add up, and Ghote slowly begins to believe that she was murdered. Now, he has to work out who is responsible. He discovers the truth, and gains some confidence in himself along the way. When he returns to Mumbai, we see that he’s done some maturing, and has a different relationship with his boss than he did at the beginning.

Cathy Ace’s The Corpse With the Silver Tongue is the first of her novels to feature Caitlin ‘Cait’ Morgan. In that novel, Morgan travels from Vancouver, where she teaches at the university, to Nice. There, she’ll attend a symposium and deliver a paper on behalf of a colleague who’s had an accident and can’t travel. One afternoon, she’s at an outdoor café when she has a chance encounter with Alistair Townsend, a former employer. Among other things, he persuades her (mostly against her will) to attend a birthday party he’s hosting for his wife, Tamsin. During the course of the party, Townsend suddenly collapses and dies of what turns out to be poison. The French police investigate, and Morgan finds herself one of the suspects. Mostly to clear her own name and be free to return to Vancouver, Morgan begins to ask questions. Each in a different way, Morgan and the police work to find out who killed Townsend, and they have several suspects. In the end, Morgan discovers the truth and goes back to Vancouver. But she’s not the same person she was at the beginning of the novel. And we see that this experience will change her life in more ways than she thought.

Sandy Curtis’ Deadly Tide is the story of Samantha ‘Sam’ Bretton. Her father Allan ‘Tug’ is the owner of a Brisbane-based fishing trawler called Sea Mistress, and the Brettons depend on the income that comes from good catches. Tug is suspected of murdering Ewan McKay, a deckhand from another trawler. He claims he’s not guilty and Sam believes him. But he’s under a cloud of suspicion. What’s more, he broke his leg in the incident surrounding McKay’s death. So, he can’t take Sea Mistress out. After some effort, Sam convinces her father to let her skipper the trawler in his place. Meanwhile, Brisbane cop Chayse Jarrett has been assigned to find out the truth about the McKay murder. He goes undercover and gets a job as deck hand on Sea Mistress, hoping to find out whether Tug Bretton is guilty of murder, and whether he might be connected to the drugs smuggling trade. The trawler goes out, with both Sam and Chayse looking to catch a killer. And the experience changes both of them. It turns out that McKay’s murder is connected with a much bigger case than it seems on the surface.

And then there’s Paddy Richardson’s Hunting Blind. Newly-minted psychiatrist Stephanie Anderson gets a new client, Elisabeth Clark. At first, they don’t make any progress together. But very slowly, Elisabeth starts to talk about herself. And Stephanie finds that her client’s story is hauntingly similar to her own. It seems that years ago, Elisabeth’s younger sister, Gracie, was abducted. No trace of her was ever found, and the experience scarred the whole family. Stephanie lost her own sister, Gemma, seventeen years earlier in a similar way. When she hears Elisabeth’s story, Stephanie decides to lay her own ghosts to rest. She travels from Dunedin to her home town of Wanaka to try to find out who wreaked so much havoc on her family and on the Clark family. Stephanie does find the answers she’s seeking. She also goes through some real personal changes.

And that’s the thing about some voyages. They can take people to places they hadn’t imagined. And they almost always change the voyager.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the traditional Bahamas folk song, The John B Sails. You might be familiar with the Kingston Trio’s recording of it, or that of the Beach Boys.

If you’ve ever been on a boat of any kind, you know that there’s always risk involved. Even on luxury cruise liners, there are lifeboat drills and other safety precautions. The thing is, you never know, when you’re out on the water, what’s going to happen.

Certainly, the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which went down with all hands on this date in 1975, didn’t know for sure what would happen to them. The ship was caught in a sudden storm, and couldn’t make it to safety in time. The loss of ships and other boats is a part of history all over the world, and it’s woven into crime fiction, too. That makes sense, when you think of all the possibilities (e.g. lost treasure, missing people who may (or may not) turn up again, and much more). There’s only room for a few examples in this one post; I know you’ll think of many others.

In Patricia Wentworth’s Grey Mask, we are introduced to Margot Standing, an ingénue who is set to inherit a large fortune from her father, Edward, who’s recently been lost at sea. The only problem is, Margot’s cousin Egbert also has a claim to the money. And the papers that would prove Edward Standing’s intent have disappeared. Egbert proposes that he and Margot should marry, and keep the money ‘in the family.’ This Margot refuses to do, and ends up leaving her home. What she doesn’t know is that she’s the target of a gang led by a mysterious criminal called Grey Mask. The plan is to get rid of her and take her money. She finds an unlikely ally in Margaret Langton, whose former fiancé Charles Moray already knows about Grey Mask’s plot. Together, Langton and Moray try to unravel the mystery of Grey Mask’s identity, and save Margot from their plans. To do that, they get help from Miss Maude Silver, for whom this novel is a first outing. In this case, the treasure wasn’t, strictly speaking, on the ship that went down. But the shipwreck has a lot to do with the plot.

In Domingo Villar’s Death on a Galician Shore, Vigo police detective Leo Caldas and his team investigate the death of a local fisherman, Justo Castelo. At first, it looks like a case of suicide. But Caldas soon notes a few little inconsistencies that call that explanation into question. So the team members dig a little deeper. They learn that Castelo didn’t have a wide social circle, and no real enemies. The only lead that seems at all promising is Castelo’s connection to José Arias and Marcos Valverde. Years earlier, the three had been out one night on a fishing boat with their captain, Antonio Sousa. A sudden storm came up, and the boat went down. Sousa died, but the other three made it back to land. And, as it turns out, that death has a lot to do with Castelo’s death.

In one plot thread of Mark Douglas-Home’s The Sea Detective, Edinburgh oceanographer Caladgh ‘Cal’ is using his expertise in wave patterns to solve the mystery of his grandfather Uilliem’s disappearance. Years earlier, Uilliem had met his wife on ilean Isagaich Mor, Great Fishing Island, settled there, and prepared to start life. Then, he was lost during a sea voyage. Now, his grandson wants to find out where his body might be and what happened to him. That trail leads back to the island and the relationships among the people there. Among other things, it’s an interesting look at what happens to a community when some of the men are lost at sea.

Sandy Curtis’ Deadly Tide takes place mostly in and around Brisbane. Allan ‘Tug’ Bretton, who captains the fishing trawler Sea Mistress, broke his leg in an onboard incident (on another boat) connected with the death of a deckhand, Ewan McKay. His daughter, Samantha ‘Sam’, wants to skipper Sea Mistress in his place. On the one hand, Tug’s not sure his daughter is ready for the responsibility. On the other, the boat has to go out, or the family stands to lose a lot of money. So, reluctantly, Tug agrees, and Sam starts to plan for the trip. One thing she’ll need to do is get a deckhand. For that, she hires Chayse Jarrett. What she doesn’t know is that he’s actually an undercover copper who’s looking into McKay’s death. He wants to see if there’s any evidence that Tug Bretton is guilty. The police theory is that McKay’s murder might be connected to the Brisbane-area drugs trade, so Jarrett is also investigating any connection the Bretton family might have to drugs smuggling. The fishing trip gets underway, and turns out to be far more dangerous than either Sam Bretton or Chayse Jarrett thought it would be. And, interestingly enough, it’s all related to a long-ago shipwreck, and the mutiny that led to it.

And then there’s Robin Blake’s historical (1742) novel, The Hidden Man. In that story, Attorney and Coroner Titus Cragg works with his friend, Dr. Luke Fidelis, to find out who killed pawnbroker and would-be banker, Philip Pimbo. Cragg and Fidelis learn that Pimbo had financially backed a ship called The Fortunate Isle. A few weeks before the murder, Pimbo’s business partner, Zadok Moon, had filed a claim with the firm that insured the ship. According to that claim, the ship and its cargo were a total loss. That claim, the ship, its cargo and its fate, turn out to be important to solving the murder. One interesting thing this novel highlights is the way insurance companies are traditionally involved in sea voyages.

Of course, not all trips by sea end tragically. Most of the time they don’t. But the fact that they might can add a lot of interesting suspense to a novel. Right, fans of Martin Cruz Smith’s Polar Star? These are just a few examples. Your turn.

In Memoriam

This post is dedicated to the memory of the 29 members of the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I hope their families have found peace and healing.

NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

One of the most challenging decisions authors and publishers make is what to title a book. Titles need to be short enough so that readers can easily remember them. The best titles also have something to do with the story. Titles really are tricky, especially when you add in the need to make a title unique – something readers will remember.

It doesn’t help matters that there are already thousands of crime novels out there, any of which could already have the same title the author may be considering. It’s true. There really are a lot of books out there with the same title. That makes it hard for the author/publisher, and certainly difficult for the book buyer. There are a lot of examples of ‘matching titles’ out there. Here are just a few.

Both L.R. Wright and Michael Robotham wrote books they called The Suspect. Wright’s novel is the story the murder of eighty-five-year-old Carlyle Burke. From the beginning of the story, we know that eighty-year-old George Wilcox is the killer; what we don’t know is the ‘why.’ As RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg learns, it’s one thing to be fairly certain that someone murdered someone else. It’s quite another to find the motive. Robotham’s novel is different. In that story, London psychologist Joe O’Loughlin gets involved in a murder investigation when the body of a nurse and former patient Catherine McBride is retrieved from Grand Union Canal. Detective Vincent Ruiz takes an interest in O’Loughlin as a suspect, since he knew the victim, was near the scene when the body was discovered, and has other connections to the case that come out as the story unfolds. O’Loughlin is going to have to find out the truth, if he’s going to clear his name. He’s also going to have to find a way to work with Ruiz.

Both Lisa Unger and Steve Robinson have written novels called In The Blood. Unger’s features college student Lana Granger, who rather reluctantly takes a job as a sort of after-school nanny for Rachel Kahn’s eleven-year-old son Luke. It seems like an easy enough job. And it’s in Lana’s chosen field of psychology, since Luke has severe social and emotional problems. Lana is uneasy from the start, but she’s soon distracted when her friend and roommate Rebecca ‘Beck’ Miller disappears. Matters get even worse when it looks as though Lana may know more than she’s saying about what happened. Robinson’s novel, on the other hand, is a genealogical mystery. Jefferson Tayte is hired to trace the lineage of Walter Sloan’s wife as a gift. The trail leads to Cornwall, so Tayte travels there. When he arrives, he locates some modern-day members of the family. He also finds that the closer he gets to the truth about that family, the more danger there is for him. Someone is willing to kill to keep certain facts hidden…

Deadly Tide is the title of a Sandy Curtis novel featuring Samantha ‘Sam’ Bretton and Brisbane copper Chayse Jarett. When Sam’s father is implicated in a murder case, she decides that she’ll have to skipper the family fishing boat Sea Mistress herself. Besides keeping the family business going, she wants to find out the truth about the murder. Jarrett’s been assigned to look into the same case, and goes along undercover as a new deck hand. Together they discover that the murder is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and is connected with some very dangerous international smugglers. One of George East’s novels is also called Deadly Tide. This one, the second in his Inspector Jack Mowgley series, begins with a gruesome discovery. An exclusive designer bag filled with heroin, a cache of money, and two arms have washed up on a beach. Mowgley and his assistant, Sergeant Catherine McCarthy, are just working on that case when they learn that a cleaner on a cross-Channel ferry has found a torso in one of the ferry’s luxury cabins. To get to the truth, Mowgley and McCarthy will go up against some very nasty drugs dealers, and the Russian Mafia.

Karin Fossum and Erica Spindler have each written a book called Don’t Look Back. Fossum’s features Oslo Inspector Konrad Sejer and his assistant Jacob Skarre. In this novel, they investigate the death of fifteen-year-old Annie Holland, whose body is found by a tarn near her village. It seems odd that someone like Annie should be killed. She was well-liked, and not the target of bullies. What’s more, there are no signs of rape, so that wasn’t the motive either. Sejer and Skaare will have to uncover quite a few local secrets to find out the truth. Spindler’s novel, on the other hand, is the story of Kat McCall’s return to her home town of Liberty, Louisiana, after a ten-year absence. She left after the murder of her sister Sara – a murder that was never solved. Everyone in town believes that Kat is responsible, and they haven’t forgotten. She is determined to find out what really happened, and works with Sergeant Luke Tanner to discover the truth.

There’s also P.J. Parrish and Sam Brandon. Both the Parrish writing duo and Brandon have written books called Dead of Winter. Parrish’s novel is the story of police officer Louis Kincaid, who takes a job with the Loon Lake, Michigan police. He soon learns that the job opened up because his predecessor was murdered. When he gets permission to re-open that case, he learns that the victim was killed during an investigation, and that there are plenty of people who do not want anyone else looking into that case. As Kincaid keeps digging, he finds that several people he’s met are not what they seem. The real action in Brandon’s novel begins when successful New York lawyer Roger Cornwell hires Tom Cavalier to find out whether his daughter Katherine died in the September 11, 2001 attacks, or whether she simply went missing. Cavalier is reluctant to take the case, but he’s a good choice. He’s an ex-military and psychologist, whose specialty was finding soldiers who’d gone AWOL. Now he’s hung out his shingle in his home town of Rockland, Maine. Cavalier isn’t eager to return to finding missing persons, but Cornwell convinces him that this case is worth investigating.

As you can see, these books do have certain similarities, and one could trace common themes. But they really are quite different stories, written in different styles, and featuring very different characters. And of course, they’re written by different authors. And yet, they have the same title. I don’t really know what the solution to the title challenge is. I face it myself. I do wonder at times how many people accidentally borrow or buy one book when they mean to get another that happens to have the same title.

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the Go-Betweens’ Dusty in Here.

Fishing has been woven into our human experience since people first learned how to catch fish. Although people all over the world eat seafood, you really see the fishing culture in seaside or lakeside areas, for obvious reasons.

Fishing is big business, too. Whether it’s sport fishing or commercial fishing, there’s a lot of money to be made in the industry. Fishing is so deeply ingrained into human history that it makes complete sense that it’s also an important part of crime fiction. There’s no possible way for me to mention all of the novels in which fishing plays a role; but here are a few examples.

In John Bude’s The Cornish Coast Mystery, Reverend Dodd, vicar of St. Michael’s-on-the-Sea, takes an interest in the shooting murder of Julius Tregarthan. Dodd’s friend Dr. Pendrill has been called to the scene, and Dodd comes along. Soon enough, it’s clear that this case isn’t going to be easy. The victim was shot through the open window of his sitting room. Three shots seem to have been fired, all from slightly different angles. So one possibility is that there were actually three assailants. Other evidence, though, makes that unlikely. It doesn’t help matters that more than one person had a motive for murder, so there are several suspects. As he follows leads, Dodd finds that he gets some very valuable information from a local man who sometimes takes his fishing boat out.

Lots of people depend on fishing for a living, even if they don’t work for a large commercial outfit. For instance, in Domingo Villar’s Death on a Galician Shore, Vigo Inspector Leo Caldas and his assistant Rafael Estevez investigate the death of a local fisherman, Justo Castelo. In many ways, the death looks like a suicide. But little clues suggest to Caldas that Castelo might have been murdered. The only problem is that there doesn’t seem to be much motive. Castelo wasn’t wealthy, and he lived a quiet life. In fact, he preferred not to mix very much socially. Then, Caldas discovers something important. In 1996, Castelo and two other fishermen were on board a boat with Captain Antonio Sousa when a terrible storm struck. Sousa was lost in the storm, but the other three made it back to land. They’ve never spoken of the incident since, but Caldas finds that it plays a role in Castelo’s death. This novel offers an interesting look at the small-time fishing life, with boats coming in early in the morning to sell their catch at the local warehouses, and the area restaurants and individual buyers coming in later to make their choices. It’s not an easy life.

We also see that in Sandy Curtis’ Deadly Tide. Allan ‘Tug’ Bretton has captained his Brisbane-based family boat Sea Mistress for quite a long time. But he’s got a broken leg from an incident that ended in the murder of Ewan McKay, a deckhand from another trawler. Bretton’s daughter Samantha ‘Sam’ wants very much to take her father’s place as skipper until he’s back on duty. Her logic is that if Sea Mistress doesn’t go out, the family fishing business will suffer and may fail. Her father finally agrees, and Sam prepares to gather her crew. Her new deckhand is Chayse Garrett, an undercover police officer who’s investigating McKay’s death. The police suspect that Bretton killed McKay, and that he might be involved in the drugs smuggling trade; Garrett’s job is to find evidence bearing on that theory. Sam’s not aware of Garrett’s identity as a detective, but she has her own reasons for wanting to bring down McKay’s killer and clear her father’s name. As Sea Mistress’ crew looks for answers, we learn a lot about life on a modern trawler. We also learn how the small-time fishing industry can sometimes be useful to the smuggling trade.

Smuggling also happens in the larger commercial fishing trade. In Martin Cruz Smith’s Polar Star, for instance, Arkady Renko has been assigned to work as a crew member on the Soviet fishing ship Polar Star. It’s a punishment for his pursuit of highly-placed Party officials (read Gorky Park for the details). Renko is fed up anyway with policing, especially if it doesn’t really change things. But he’s drawn into a case of murder when one of his crew mates, Zina Patiashvili, is hauled out of the ocean with the day’s catch. At first, there seems no motive for the murder. The victim was a galley worker, like everyone else, and hadn’t any obvious enemies or wealth. But soon enough, Renko learns that there was another side to her. She was involved in smuggling and blackmailing, and some very important people are implicated.

Andrea Camilleri’s Salvo Montalbano lives and works in fictional Vigàta, on Sicily. So as you can imagine, there’s lots of fishing integrated into that series. For example, in one plot thread of The Snack Thief, Montalbano investigates the shooting of a Tunisian sailor who happened to be aboard an Italian fishing boat. Montalbano finds that he was killed when a Tunisian boat fired on the Italian boat. The question then becomes: how accidental was the death, really? In that thread of the story, Camilleri makes reference to the long-standing unease between Tunisia and Sicily over water, territory and fishing rights.

Many people enjoy sport fishing and fishing as a hobby. So there’s also a lucrative business in providing places and equipment for fishing enthusiasts. Just ask Nelson Brunanski’s John ‘Bart’ Bartowksi. He and his wife Rosie live in the small Saskatchewan town of Crooked Lake. But they own Stuart Lake Lodge, a holiday fishing lodge in the northern part of the province. Clients come from many different places, including other countries, to spend time fishing and relaxing. It sounds harmless enough, but in Burnt Out, the lodge is burned, and a body discovered in the ruins of the fire. Now, gossip spreads that Bart is guilty of arson and very likely murder, too. He knows that he’ll need to find out what happened to his family’s business if he’s to clear his name. The Bartowskis aren’t going to be the same after this tragedy, but Bart’s determined to at least preserve the family’s integrity.

Scotland’s another popular place for sport fishing. Just ask M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth. He’s the local bobby for the village of Lochdubh, but he’d just as soon relax with a fishing line. So he understands the appeal of John and Heather Cartwright’s Lochdubh School of Casting: Salmon and Trout Fishing, to which we’re introduced in Death of a Gossip. The Cartwrights open a new class, hoping that all will go well. It doesn’t. One of the participants is Jane Maxwell, gossip columnist for the London Evening Star. She wants new fodder for her column, and is willing to go through everyone’s proverbial closet, looking for skeletons. When she’s found strangled with casting line, it’s clear that someone in that fishing class didn’t want her to find out too much. Macbeth investigates, and as he does, we learn a bit about the modern fishing resort. There are a lot of other crime-fictional mentions of the Scottish fishing life, too, including Gordon Ferris’ The Hanging Shed and Mark Douglas-Home’s The Sea Detective, to name just two.

There are many, many other examples of fishing in crime fiction (I know, I know, fans of Johan Theorin’s Gerloff Davidsson). Which do you like best?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Billy Joel’s The Downeaster ‘Alexa.’